


Together at the DX

by emullz



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24409480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emullz/pseuds/emullz
Summary: Three jobs Sodapop Curtis hated, and one job he didn't
Relationships: Sodapop Curtis/Steve Randle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Together at the DX

The first job Sodapop Curtis ever worked was as an errand boy when he was twelve. Or, Soda called it “errand boy” in his head—it wasn’t a job, really, just a group of guys who gave him 20 bucks to drop things off to other guys in public parks or on stoops. He put it in his backpack and he walked it over and sometimes, if he was uicky, they slipped him another ten when he handed it over.

He only really hated the job retrospectively, once Darry found out after word spread. He didn’t call it “errand boy” he called it “runner,” which sounded much worse. Darry got real mad, but when he spoke it was a hard whisper, the kind that came out between his teeth. Mom and Dad were home and as much as Darry wanted to kill Soda, he didn’t want to kill his parents.

Once Soda agreed never to carry anything for the guys outside the high school anymore, they never spoke of it again. Soda didn’t even tell Steve. It was okay for Two-Bit to treat him weird, and hell, Dally’d probably be proud, but even then, Steve Randle was different.

The second job came the day Soda turned 14 and could legally work. The local corner store, Carson & Sons, was notorious for being the only place around willing to hire kids like Soda, green as could be and from his part of town. Everybody did their time stocking shelves and cleaning floors until Carson’s shouting got to be too much or they got a better job somewhere else. Even Steve, who usually made fun of Soda’s relentless optimism, admitted Soda stuck it out longer than anyone else he knew.

Steve turned 14 three months before Soda and he only lasted 3 days with Carson. Now he worked with his dad, building houses after school and on the weekends. Soda didn’t mind the yelling so much. It was one of his mother’s favorite things about him. “You see the best in people, Sodapop,” she was always saying.

No, the reason Soda hated the job was the hours. Every day after school and six hours on Saturdays. There was no more loitering in the schoolyard shooting spitballs at his friends, no more long Saturday romps around the neighborhood. No more walking home with Steve to see what they could rustle up out of his house for snacks. Carson wouldn’t even let Steve hang around the store. Steve swore he’d never lift anything, at least not while Soda was working, but Carson didn’t believe him.

So Soda spent afternoons counting cans of peas, staring out the store window, waiting for his friends to walk by and press their faces into the glass.

The third job Soda got was an accident. He’d been held back a year in history, and even the second time it moved too fast. He sat in the back, if only because of his reputation. All the Socs sat at the front, raising their hands, giving their answers with a confidence Soda couldn’t even imagine. The teachers had given up on Soda the minute they’d seen him walk through the door.

One Soc, a redheaded girl named Cherry, stayed after one day to talk to the teacher. Usually Soda would get out of school as fast as he could, but Cherry sounded stressed, like she was asking for something important, so Soda took his time putting his things back into his bag.

“I wouldn’t ask,” she was saying, “except that my mom made me get a job and I didn’t realize how much harder it would be to get my work done.”

She was batting her eyelashes. The teacher looked at her for a second, and Soda was sure he’d tell her no, that she’d just have to find the time, that he didn’t give out favors. But he just smiled and said, “of course you can have an extension.”

Soda, shocked, almost dropped his books on the floor. The teacher didn’t look back as he left the room but Cherry did, smiling in a rueful sort of way. Soda did everything he could to avoid eye contact.

“I try not to act like that usually,” Cherry said to him. “I just really needed that extension.”

“Okay,” Soda mumbled. Cherry shouldered her bag as if to leave and Soda swallowed. He couldn’t ask for an extension, but maybe—“where do you work?”

Cherry’s eyes narrowed. “The Cineplex. Why?”

“Are they hiring?”

Cherry walked him all the way to Carson’s. She was surprisingly easy to talk to, and even though her music taste was awful she promised Soda she could have him hanging up his apron by the end of the week. “You’ll have to wear one of those ugly vests, though” she told him, laughing. It was nice, Soda found, to laugh with her. He said he wouldn’t mind wearing the ugliest vest in the world.

Cherry was true to her word. The Cineplex gave him a maroon vest and a vile checkered tie. To convince the manager to hire him Cherry had assumed all training responsibilities so they had all the same shifts. Soda’s favorite were Monday nights. Nobody saw movies on Mondays so he and Cherry spent their time throwing popcorn at each other and sneaking into the backs of theaters to make fun of the movies.

She covered for him the week his parents died and he was too cut up to do anything but hold his brothers and stare at the door, wishing it would open one more time. And when he got back, she treated him the same way she always had. Like a dumb younger brother she lived to make fun of.

But that was the thing. Soda didn’t like the job, he liked Cherry. And even then, he couldn’t stand the way she ignored him when other Socs walked in to see a movie, and there were times at school when she was outright mean. She never apologized, just acted like it was a fact of life. And every time they hung out during a shift, it just made it that much harder to take.

It didn’t help that Steve hated her. “The princess,” he called her whenever she came up in passing, his face derisive, his tone vindictive. It got so bad he wouldn’t even go to the Cineplex anymore, and Soda missed him with the same strange ache he’d missed him all those afternoons at Carson’s.

It all came to a head on a Monday. Soda was getting reader for his shift at home, buttoning his white shirt, rummaging around for his ugly tie. He’d just turned 15, and even though he’d thought it would change things he was still failing most of his classes, still asking for a raise at the Cineplex that they kept putting off. Steve was still made at him. He came over for cake, the day of, but then he left. The two of them usually spent the night drinking Pepsi and eating their weight in potato chips, falling asleep tangled together on the living room floor. Not this year.

But Soda wasn’t thinking about it. He wasn’t allowed to. Until, of course, Steve burst through the door while Soda was putting his shoes on.

“I got the job!” he shouted.

Soda stood up straight and looked at him, arms hanging uselessly by his sides. “What job?”

Steve stopped short, uncomfortable. “Oh. I thought you’d be at work.”

“I’m running late.”

They looked at each other, both clearly remembering how it had been before. “What job?” Soda asked finally, breaking the silence.

“The one at the DX. Darry helped me get it, he roofs houses with the owner’s nephew.”

Steve’s answer hung in the air. When they were still talking they used to talk about working at the DX, pumping gas and maybe someday getting to work with the cars. It meant more money, it meant spending time doing something Steve liked. It meant getting away from his father.

“That’s great,” Soda said.

Steve scuffed his shoe on the floor, toe catching on the carpet. “Yeah.”

“Look, Steve-“ Soda started at the same time Steve said “Hey, Soda-“ and they were yet again at an impasse. This one, though, was less tense. Maybe they were starting to get back to where they were. Or, at least, that’s what Soda was hoping for. He gestured for Steve to go first.

“I was gonna say I could try and get you a job there too. You know, like we talked about.”

Soda was ready to say yes, to jump at the chance, but things weren’t like they were last year. He wasn’t just working for pocket money anymore. “I would. I mean I want to, I’m just… Cherry says they’re gonna have to give me that raise any day now—“

“It’s not about the raise,” Steve spat, “it’s about your stupid Soc girlfriend.”

“Cherry’s not my girlfriend.”

“Could’ve fooled me! All you do is talk about what she says, about customers or movies and how you two—“

“That’s funny, because there’s no way you’d know what I talk about seeing you haven’t said anything to me in weeks!”

“Why would I talk to you when it only took one Soc to replace me?”

Both boys were breathing hard, staring at each other with wide eyes.

“I’d never replace you,” Soda said quietly. “Cherry’s cool and all but we’d never talk if we didn’t work together. She still ignores me in school, you know. I don’t like her like… I don’t like her like I like you.”

Steve’s face split open into a grin but he ducked his head so Soda wouldn’t see. “That’s, uh… okay. Me neither, I guess. I mean, I can’t talk to anybody the way I can talk to you.” He looked up, clearly nervous. “I guess I don’t like anybody else the way I like you either.”

Sodapop’s fourth job was at the DX with Steve. The pay was fair, and the work was fun—boys and cars, he always said, what more could you ask for—but he would have been stupid to think it was any reason other than Steve that made it good.

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully this ticked all the boxes!! it was really fun to write


End file.
